They called in artillery support. As the traitors charged, a forest of explosions erupted before them.

When the air had cleared, the land was strewn with bodies. A few of them were twitching. One raised his hand as if to ward off a blow. Minka was distracted; she watched his movements slow and become more sporadic.

By the tenth day the Cadians were starting to be withdrawn. In Minka’s section of trench line, hers was the only Cadian unit left. On one side were Rakallions and on the other, Drookians.

When Minka went to greet their captain she saw with horror that it was the man she had met on their first night. His name was Captain Midha.

‘Look! Some valiant Cadians in need of help,’ he said. ‘Give me your name and rank, so I know who I fight beside.’

‘My name is Acting-Lieutenant Arminka Lesk.’ She had hoped the dust and dirt had made her unrecognisable, but he looked at her slantwise.

‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You’re the petulant child that shot up my convoy!’

There was no point in denying it. She bit her tongue but his blood was up. ‘How have you been coping fighting things that shoot back?’ he sneered and reached out to pat her head in the manner of an adult disciplining a wayward youth.

She caught his arm. He tried to hit her with the other, but she knocked him back with an open-handed blow to the sternum that started in her right ankle and moved up through leg and hip and core, through her arm.

He fell back, sprawled in the mud.

‘You dare?’ the Drookian spat and leapt forward.

Minka braced herself, but suddenly she was pushed aside. ‘Now then. What’s all this?’ Colour Sergeant Tyson demanded.

‘Your acting-lieutenant struck me,’ the Drookian stated. ‘She shot and damaged Imperial equipment!’

‘Have you made a formal complaint?’

‘Yes!’ the Drookian snapped. ‘But she also struck me, a senior officer. Have you dogs no honour?’

‘I think you should make another complaint,’ Tyson said. His words were conciliatory, but everything in his manner and attitude said the opposite. The Drookian’s cheeks coloured but Tyson was formidable, even when he was feigning politeness.

‘Cadians,’ Captain Midha spat, and turned his back in disgust.

Tyson held Minka back.

‘Don’t get involved,’ he warned her.

Five

FIVE

Tyson reassigned Minka’s troops to the other end of the line. She was in a dug-out along a ridge that overlooked Josmane Beach.

The next few days were quiet, battle-wise, but each night they heard the scrape of metal and the rumble of heavy machinery from down on the traitor beaches.

‘They’re massing for an all-out attack,’ Belus said. ‘And we’re stuck here.’

‘You should have stayed with Dreno,’ Baine told him.

Belus held his hand up. His broken finger was starting to turn purple. ‘If it wasn’t for him I’d be out of here already.’